


Picnic or Orgy

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: The Big Chill (1983)
Genre: AU where everyone having sex in college makes everything turn out great in the future, Background everyone/everyone, I mean not exactly but look, Multi, if you came here for the orgy you will be disappointed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 04:25:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16032950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: I feel like I should apologize for this because it's entirely self indulgent, and will be read by like, two people from the 10 Out Of 10 Goldblums discord, but you know what, sometimes fanfic is just self-indulgence that only two people are going to read.In which a bunch of college hippies just decide to have an orgy because the weekend would be boring otherwise, and almost all the action is out of focus.





	Picnic or Orgy

    The thing is, once the subject comes up, with the general mood and the flow of everything, no one says ‘that might be weird’ or ‘I’d rather not’.

 

    Michael expects Harold to say it would fuck everything up, but he doesn’t, and at that point everyone has laughed and nodded and said sure, they would, and Michael doesn’t want to be the one to say no. In part because he doesn’t want to spoil the group fun, but also because he would just… be entirely happy to have sex with any of his friends.

 

    The idea of doing so in a group, that’s a little different. With an audience. Also, ‘orgy’ wasn’t really the same as sleeping with _everybody_ , not exactly. It’s just that they’d all be in the same room and maybe you’d make out with a few people or something, he’s not really sure, but how much time were they devoting to this? Surely he’d just finish once, and that should be-- if at all possible-- with the person he most wanted to have sex with.

 

    Which…

 

    “Five guys and three girls.” He points out, aiming for casual. “So, I mean, one of us would have to, uh…”

 

    “Holy shit, Michael, no.” Nick laughs, reaching over to gently tap him upside the head. “You take turns and you _share_. It’s like you’ve never been to an orgy before.”

 

    “I haven’t. None of us have. We all just said we’ve never done this before.” He swats after him.

 

    “Okay, well, it’s like you’ve never seen any pictures before, then.”

 

    His eyes widen. “I haven’t.”

 

    “Well-- Okay, well, we should lay out some ground rules, right?” Nick looks over to Harold at that.

 

    “There’s a certain amount of contact you have to be prepared for with another guy at an orgy.” Sam says, at about the same time. “If we’re both heading for the same spot at the same time, you can’t get mad about it, that’s a rule.”

 

    “I don’t think we should get hung up about that stuff.” Alex nods. “If we’re going to--”

 

    “Yeah, we’re going to!” Sam leans forward.

 

    “So we shouldn’t, like… I mean, what is sex, anyway?”

 

    “A hell of a good time.”

 

    “But like… this is an experiment, right? In sexual freedom and pleasure for pleasure’s sake?”

 

    “It’s a group thing.” Nick cuts back in, mostly to Michael. “It’s not like… you line up a bunch of couples, it’s not like… competitive fucking.”

 

    “I didn’t say it was competitive. So, okay, fine, so it’s a group thing, great.”

 

    “Which is why it gets confusing and you’re not allowed to get mad if another guy grabs your ass by mistake. Accidents happen, there’s going to be hands everywhere. The ratio of hands to asses is going to be two to one in favor of hands--”

 

    “Yeah, I’d hope so.” Harold snorts.

 

    “And Michael’s already raised the point of the ratio of male to female ass. Just move the hand off yourself and let it go.”

 

    “Right, but that’s not…” Alex shakes his head. “You have to be given the freedom to enjoy that within the spirit of a greater group experience! If you don’t, you can move a hand off of you, but you shouldn’t be rushing to react based on societal expectation.”

 

    “I’m sorry, did you go to a lecture on orgy politics? What the hell is this and where is it coming from?”

 

    “We’re looking to have the greatest and fullest possible experience. So we should be open to things happening.”

 

    “I’m not open to things happening.” Nick shakes his head.

 

    “Then maybe an orgy is not for you.” Harold says.

 

    “Like you are.”

 

    “If one of my friends slaps my ass while I’m mid-act, I’m not going to slow down, I don’t care which friend did the slapping.” He shrugs.

 

    “If we can handle all of you guys pawing at us you can handle it.” Karen says.

 

    “It’s different. I mean, it’s different. Like, it’s not me groping you it would be like Meg groping you, you wouldn’t be comfortable with that.”

 

    “Whoa, let’s not be hasty there.” Sam shoves at Nick. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

 

    “I don’t have any hang-ups.” Karen shrugs. “Meg? Sarah?”

 

    “No hang-ups.” Sarah shakes her head.

 

    “Yeah, we could do things with each other no problem. But only if you guys do it, too.”

 

    “Okay.” Michael says, which… doesn’t seem to be the right answer, from the sharp way Nick looks over at him.

 

    “Willing to jump on that grenade to see two girls go at it, huh?” Sam laughs.

 

    “I mean if you’re all interested in watching. Only two of us have to do anything, and it’s not sex, it’s-- what? What is it? Just kissing?”

 

    “I’ll go as far as you will.” She grins over at him from across the circle. “We’ll see who’s ‘open to the experience’.”

 

    “I am open to the experience.”

 

    “Guys all have hang-ups. They don’t want to seem… you know.” She gestures. “It’s not like that for women.”

 

    Michael looks over to Alex, and then quickly away. He had talked about not having hang-ups, he hadn’t volunteered himself.

 

    “I don’t have hang-ups.” Alex says, and he’s slung his arm around Michael from the seat beside his a hundred times or more but it feels a little different this time. “Is this something we’re doing now?”

 

    “See!” Karen points. “Deer in the headlights! You couldn’t do it.”

 

    She’s drastically mis-reading Michael’s wide-eyed reaction to the thought of Alex kissing him, but that doesn’t matter. Alex just waits on Michael to say yes or no.

 

    “We’re not doing anything else.” He shrugs. “Yeah. I mean-- I said I would. It’s not like it’s, like you’re just any guy. Why shouldn’t friends be able to, you know, what’s a little, uh… a little kissing between friends?”

 

    Alex’ hand slides against the side of his face, goes from caressing his cheek to cupping his jaw gently to draw him in, back further, fingers curving gentle around the back of Michael’s neck. He’s forgotten how to breathe, he doesn’t need to breathe, he just needs Alex to kiss him, and he _does_. Alex’ lips are… nice, definitely nice. After a moment of hesitation, he moves a hand to Alex’ chest. One of the girls wolf-whistles at them, but twisted half-around to face Alex, Michael can feel Nick shift away uncomfortably behind him on the sofa.

 

    They’ve never kissed. There’s a lot they’ve never done, but Karen doesn’t know they’ve traded handjobs, which… well, he doesn’t mind winning this bet in a slightly shady manner. He doesn’t honestly care about the girls paying up. He doesn’t get the appeal of watching two girls doing anything together. He gets the appeal of doing something with a girl, even if that’s not his first choice, it’s still good when you’re doing it, or sometimes it is if you like the girl. Watching it sounds kind of boring in comparison, even when it’s two girls he’d like being with. But he does kind of care about winning, even if it’s a cheat, and the _thrill_ that comes with kissing Alex in front of everybody…

 

    Kissing him at all is good, but kissing him publicly? He never thought it was a _possibility_.

 

    Alex draws back slowly, eyes sparkling. “How’s that?”

 

    “I didn’t think you’d go through with it.” Karen says, and Sam and Nick are both crowing ‘pay up’ as if they’d had anything to do with it, and Michael turns because he knows he’s supposed to, but it just sort of…

 

    The kiss happens, over on the other side of the room, it just doesn’t really register. Before they’re really done, he’s turning back to Alex, guiding him back in. Alex reaches up to pull his glasses off before kissing him again, and the room goes very quiet, before the kiss can break, not as long as the first. Deeper, though.

 

    “What?” Michael blinks around at the others, most of them blurry. “You said you would do as much as we did, right?”

 

    “You want a repeat show that bad?” Meg laughs, but it’s a little off.

 

    “Alex doesn’t have bad lips.” He shrugs.

 

    “Then give me Alex.” Karen says playfully, reaching out towards them without moving from her seat.

 

    “No, no, you’ve still got Meg. You said you’d go as far as I would. Unless you have some limits you want to add now...”

 

    “Oh, I don’t think _you_ can call my bluff.”

 

    “This has quickly become a matter of honor.” Harold lifts an eyebrow. “The battle of the sexes!”

 

    “Take your seats, ladies and gentlemen, the competition promises to be a hot one!” Nick adds, forgetting to be particularly uncomfortable with Alex and Michael next to him.

 

    “See the lengths some men will go to to watch a little girl-on-girl action!” Sam chimes in as well.

 

    “If you’re all done?”

 

    “Oh, no-- I wasn’t. This was just a little time-out to clarify the nature of the game.” Michael shakes his head. “You’ll get your turn in a minute.”

 

    He turns back to Alex, question in his eyes, hand twisting at the hem of his sweatshirt, and when he gets a grin and a stifled laugh and a nod, he pulls it off. There’s a loud, general whoop from nearly everyone, followed by Nick muttering that he can’t believe he cheered for that, Sam and Harold joining Sarah on the wolf-whistling, and Meg’s protest that male shirtlessness is cheating.

 

    The protest is cut short when Michael leans in and drags his tongue over a nipple.

 

    He has no idea what he’s doing. Not just because this is uncharted waters, because anything outside of the traded handjobs is uncharted waters, but the audience, the game…

 

    “Wow, you’re not kidding around…” Alex says, and his voice… his voice is the same kind of soft-and-husky as when he slides into the room sometimes and touches Michael’s arm and asks if he wants to make some time.

 

    He pulls back a little, licking his lips, gazing up at Alex a long moment before turning to Meg and Karen. “I am not. Did I call that bluff?”

 

    “No.” She says, though the air of bravado eases a moment when she shoots Meg a look to check in with her.

 

    “I’ve got no hang-ups.” Meg pulls her own top off, earning a gasp not from any of the guys in the room, but from Sarah, perched on the arm of Harold’s chair.

 

    “And the bra.” Nick prompts.

 

    “I thought you burned that bra!” Sarah says.

 

    “I’ve burned _a_ bra. It was a symbolic protest, I can’t burn every bra. Anyway… the way I see it I can keep the bra. Alex never removed a bra--”

 

    “Alex was never wearing a bra.”

 

    “But he never _removed_ one, or had one removed from him, so.”

 

    “The point is having a bare chest for the… nipple thing.” Nick shakes his head.

 

    “I burned all my bras.” Sarah frowns.

 

    “I can find a nipple without a road map.” Karen says.

 

    “Right, but… we want to _see_ it.”

 

    “Nobody should be wearing a bra. If this is ever going to be an orgy, let’s just make that a rule, bras off.”

 

    There’s a general murmur of agreement from most of the group, outside of Meg. She looks to Karen and gets a shrug.

 

    “I’m already not wearing one.”

 

    “Let Meg keep her bra.” Alex says. “It just means we get a point.”

 

    “Since when are there points?” Harold asks.

 

    “Since now.”

 

    “You don’t get a point for that.”

 

    “I mean, no one wants to make you uncomfortable if you want to wear your bra.”

 

    “Right, but then we get a point.” Michael nods.

 

    “If it would make you feel better, I could put one of your bras on and then take it off.”

 

    “You’re not stretching out one of my good bras.” Meg makes a face.

 

    “A not-good one, then.”

 

    “I burned the not-good ones.”

 

    “Well, I offered. And we still get that point.” Alex leans back into his seat, leg resting against Michael’s.

 

    “Fine, you get a point. We’ll get all the points when you two fold.” Karen says, turning to Meg.

 

    Again, they kiss, and again, Michael pretends to be fascinated by the sight. Makes the same lascivious noises the other guys make when they make them, but his mind is on the last time he’d had Alex, sitting side by side on Alex’ bed, lights on and hands moving over each other and the sheer level of _desire_ that hit him when he had imagined doing more. The way he’d come, hard, when he had thought about putting his mouth on Alex, come into the same pair of Alex’ underwear dragged out from under the bed and he’d thought about the co-mingling of their release and he’d wanted things that had nothing to do with getting an orgasm from another person. His mind is also on the idea of what Alex would look like in a bra, which… he thinks is more ridiculous than sexy, but… Okay, so a bra would just look awkward and weird, but then he imagines Alex in more of a negligee thing, and that’s unfairly not-ridiculous, at least in his imagination.

 

    “Well? What else have you got?” Karen asks, and it snaps him out of blankly staring at them when they’d already done everything. Everything so far, anyway.

 

    It’s the same back-and-forth as before. Another bout of kissing on each end, Michael sliding his hands over Alex’ bare torso, Alex moving to straddle his lap when he turns sideways on the couch, and the girls doing the same. Michael getting a hand in Alex’ hair, tilting his head back and making love to his throat, leaving a mark there, feeling the way Alex’ breath catches, the barely audible moan.

 

    Again, he watches with the others as the girls start going through the motions, but it’s a pale imitation, there’s too much of a wink to the audience, there’s no _feeling_. Not like the feeling he puts into it, with Alex. It can’t hold his attention, but it has everyone else’s.

 

    Michael turns towards Alex, hand coming up, thumb brushing past the mark he’d started, and he leans in to whisper to him.

 

    “How far are you cool with? More than necking?”

 

    “... How far are you willing to go to win this?”

 

    “I don’t-- I don’t really… I want to do this orgy thing with _you_ , not… not pretending I don’t…”

 

    “I dig you.” Alex nods, his hand sliding over to Michael’s thigh. “Just like… like usual?”

 

    Michael shakes his head. “More. Is--?”

 

    “Okay.” Alex nods. “More’s okay.”

 

    He slides from his seat on the couch, when the girls have finished and the group’s attention swivels back towards him, shifting to kneel before Alex, biting his lip as he nudges his thighs wider.

 

    “You won’t.” Karen says.

 

    “You _can’t_.” Nick practically leaps to his feet.

 

    “I might.” Michael looks up at Alex, sucking in a deep breath when Alex reaches out to play with his hair. There’s a nervous laugh that runs through the group, at the thought of it. This is his Rubicon, and crossing it changes everything.

 

    “You’d win.” Harold says, looking between him and the girls.

 

    “You may.” Alex smiles, voice barely there, and it’s that throaty warmth and the gleam in his eye, and Michael slides one hand up his thigh to cup over his crotch, feeling him through his jeans, already firm.

 

    “I’m out.” Meg announces. “I don’t have hang-ups but there’s free love and then there’s… too free.”

 

    “Great, okay, you’ve gone far enough, you win.” Nick says, from down at the other end of the room.

 

    “Not if they stop. Then it’s just bluffing.” Sarah argues. “It still has to happen.”

 

    “It doesn’t have to _happen_ , shit-- Michael doesn’t have to blow a guy!”

 

    “I’ll be honest, I’m gonna be real let down if he stops there…” Alex shifts a little, groans when Michael squeezes gently.

 

    “I will.” He promises. He gets Alex’ jeans open, drawing him out, and sure, the angle is different, but he’s still confident with this much. With Alex, and the way he fits his hand when he’s half hard, and the strangled little sound he makes every time Michael makes the first sweep over the head of his cock with a thumb. “I-- I’ve never done _this_ , exactly, before…”

 

    “Just do whatever you want to. Just do anything, it’s-- it’s cool.”

 

    “How is this cool? _Shit_ …” Nick is pacing a little, his journey away from the couch taking him between the ottoman Sam is perched on and the chair Harold and Sarah are sharing.

 

    “I know. Look, I don’t envy your positions here, but I’m a little offended neither of you asked me…” Sam says. Nick smacks his shoulder, and Sam smacks back, hitting his thigh. “It’s not about whether I’d say yes, it’s about, I think I’m good looking enough to be _asked_.”

 

    “It’s not about good-looking.” Michael says.

 

    “Michael’s good-looking.” Alex defends, at the same time. It gets him a couple of noises of disbelief, and one starry-eyed look of adoration from Michael.

 

    “ _Michael_?”

 

    “Yeah. Look, you don’t have to be attracted to him, but you could at least be man enough to admit he’s good-looking to other people instead of being hung up on his being a man.”

 

    “Michael could be attractive to a certain sort of girl.” Sam allows, when Nick is unable to form a response. “The motherly type. Looking for a stick insect to feed up.”

 

    “Don’t listen to him, baby.” Alex snorts. And maybe it’s all joking, maybe it’s just to help try to cut the tension, but Michael feels something about it anyway. It’s not that Alex has never called him ‘baby’ before, but he’s never done it with his dick in Michael’s hand, it’s always been the kind of ‘baby’ you could pass off as strictly platonic. This one feels… special. Sweet.

 

    He bends his head, lips brushing over the head of Alex’ cock, feeling the heat of it, their eyes still locked. He licks his lips and does it again, more a kiss this time, feels the responding _throb_ in his hand.

 

    “You want me to show you how?” Meg teases him. He knows she doesn’t mean anything by it, maybe still thinks he’s only doing this to win some stupid game, or out of a sense of pride anyway, but he feels a little possessive just the same, a little anxious until Alex smooths over his hair, buries his fingers back in it.

 

    “We’re okay.”

 

    She still comes over, looking over his shoulder a moment, and he opens his mouth wide to take Alex in, before she can say he really doesn’t know what he’s doing. Maybe he’s never done it before, but he knows how it _works_.

 

    “... Wow. You really _don’t_ mess around.” She says, scooting back a little to let him. Staying close enough to watch, just for another good moment. And being watched is a little weird, but he likes it-- doesn’t like it like he’s getting off on it, but he _likes_ it, because he never could have told anyone that Alex is his in even a small ‘sometimes’ kind of a way, but now he doesn’t have to.

 

    And his mouth is occupied, and he’s not about to pull off just to answer, but he does hum an affirmative, and that…

 

    Alex grunts, hand tightening in Michael’s hair. He hums again, not a little quick ‘mm-hm’ but a drawn out low sound that has Alex’ hips stuttering up off the couch, cock hitting Michael’s soft palate and sliding against it, which kind of tickles in a weird way he thinks he also likes, except then it slides back far enough to gag on.

 

    “Oh, shit, baby, I’m sorry…” Alex strokes his face as well as his hair, easing him up off his cock. “Michael, are you, are you cool?”

 

    “Yeah. Yeah, I’m… I’m one hundred percent copacetic.”

 

    Sam laughs, shaking his head a little. “Okay, so this is-- bet won, right? Point proved?”

 

    “I mean you can leave if it bothers you. But you can’t ask a guy to get just half a blowjob.”

 

    “No, I just-- I’m gonna say what everyone’s thinking, it’s weird to sit around and watch two of our friends going hot and heavy without any of the rest of us getting into the orgy spirit.”

 

    “Weird doesn’t cover it.” Nick says.

 

    “Well c’mere and take your mind off it, then. We’ve done all the hard work of getting ourselves revved up.” Meg says, moving back towards the other side of the room, and a cushion on the floor.

 

    Michael gets back to it, without much thought for the others and what they might get up to, figures out what he can do without putting his gag reflex in the line of fire, and just _goes_ for it. He can hear zippers, can hear clothes hit the floor, but whose clothes he doesn’t really know or need to. The others are all centrally located now, everything just happening in the vicinity of ‘behind him’

 

    Alex and Nick both hiss out a strangled ‘oh shit’ at the same time, very different in tone.

 

    “Well then quit watching them and start getting _involved_.” Meg groans. “Do you want to do this or not?”

 

    There are other moans, giggles, snatches of direction given, the sounds of wet kisses, but Michael is focused. Alex is so _hard_ , is making noises now that he’s never made for a handjob, and Michael doesn’t know how much is this being better and how much is that they don’t have to keep it down when everyone already knows… He can already tell he’s going to crave the taste of his skin for the rest of his life, how it starts out so clean it’s barely a taste at all, until the salt tang of sweat hits his tongue and the building musk of it hits his nose, and it’s suddenly everything. And he could do this, he could do this always, he could slip into Alex’ bed and offer him this every night and never ask for more than he’s been given… He’s been given so much already.

 

    “ _Michael_ …” Alex strokes his cheek, Alex’ thumb traces along Michael’s lips, wrapped around him, sloppy with spit. Alex’ hand slides back up into Michael’s hair, where he holds on but he doesn’t pull. “I wish you knew how good you look… I wish you knew how good you _feel_ , fuck… Baby, I’m not gonna last much longer…”

 

    His voice has that same ragged note that’s so familiar, from all the traded handjobs where they would keep up whatever meaningless discussion they were having right up until they came, heads tucked against each other’s shoulders, some hastily grabbed sock or pair of boxers or wad of tissues between them. And Alex would gasp once, and come down slow, and say something about music or whatever else, breath hot and damp against Michael’s neck, that edge of bliss to his voice…

 

    He hums again, watching Alex. He doesn’t think he’s ever gotten to watch him come-- there’s a lot of eye contact when they’re still just talking, but not right at the end… He’s seen him struggle to keep the thread of a philosophical debate before just changing the subject, seen his eyes sparkle over the conversation, seen the moments where pleasure distracts him, but not when it overwhelms him.

 

    The awe, that’s new, too. There’s a lot he’s never seen before right now.

 

    Could he tell him he loves him, after this? It would be okay, if Alex thought he only meant it as a friend, he also loves him as a friend, that’s fair. He doesn’t need to hear it back the same way. If Alex only loves him as a friend and this is just something that happens now and then, he’s still happier with it than without it. He doesn’t doubt his place as Alex’ friend even if he can’t quite imagine what else they could be. He wants them to be… something. Something he never really let himself imagine before, something he’s never seen anyone else _be_ before, to another guy.

 

    Maybe he’d say they couldn’t, for all the reasons Michael can agree are sensible. But maybe he’d be sorry they couldn’t, and that would be enough. If he could at least think they both felt something and wanted something, it would be okay not to have it, no one just gets to have everything in the world. And the world wouldn’t let them have this, and he wouldn’t ask Alex to fight the world for him on it. Not when Alex already doesn’t know how to pick his battles…

 

    He loves him for that, but he worries, too, when it means burning out every three months or so, recovering only to throw himself right back at _everything_. He can’t add a burden onto Alex’ shoulders, that isn’t what he wants. He only wants to give him something. As much as he can. To hold him together the way Alex has done for him. To be beside him, whatever they wind up doing, whatever they wind up being.

 

    He doesn’t think that’s wanting too much. At least, kneeling on the floor, looking up into Alex’ eyes, sucking his cock, it doesn’t feel that way.

 

    And there are other giggles and moans and the slap of flesh against flesh behind them, but they’re not really a part of it, they’re just _them_ , they’re _them_ and everyone knows it now.

 

    “ _Fuck_ , Michael…” Alex groans, and both hands are on him now, against his cheek and in his hair. Alex shifting his hips, careful this time, barely rocking up into Michael’s mouth. “Fuck, I’m not-- I’m gonna--”

 

    Michael hums again, just to take him the rest of the way there, only to gag a little when Alex does come. It’s more embarrassing than anything else. Alex fusses over him again, though, after, which is nice…

 

    “You okay? C’mere, come here.” He slides down from the couch to take Michael in his arms, rubbing his back.

 

    “I’m fine.”

 

    “Yeah?”

 

    “Yeah. I just never did it before. I-- I mean, I could, uh, I could get better at it.”

 

    “Lie down.” Alex smiles, pushing him back, gentle. “Your turn.”

 

    He leans over him, pausing when Michael draws back from being kissed.

 

    “I just--” Michael chuckles, nervous.

 

    “What?” Alex strokes his face.

 

    “You-- you wanna kiss me after?”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    “It’s not gross, or…?”

 

    “No. It’s just us… I still wanna kiss you.”

 

    “Oh. Okay. I mean-- I wanna kiss you, I just-- um, it’s-- like, my mouth tastes, you know…”

 

    “Yeah.” Alex laughs, leans in. Kisses him. Slow, deep, and there’s no way he’s not tasting himself on Michael’s tongue. And he teases the roof of his mouth with light little licks, until Michael is squirming beneath him, and there’s nothing to focus on but his own need.

 

    “Alex?” He cups his face as he pulls away.

 

    “Yeah?”

 

    “It’s just us-- You said ‘it’s just us’, um… I mean, is-- is it okay if I… love you?”

 

    “Yes.” He whispers, and kisses Michael again. “Yes.”

   

    “Okay. Good. I love you.”

 

    On the other side of the room, Sam jogs maybe three steps. There’s a laugh, Sam yelps at something. Michael couldn’t tear his attention away from Alex for a second to get an idea of what the others were all doing together.

 

    “I love you.” Alex smiles, one hand still tangled in Michael’s hair.

 

    “You do?”

 

    “Yeah. I mean, of course I do.” He slides a hand up under Michael’s shirt, urges him to push himself up and shrug out of it. “Why do you think I’m always after you?”

 

    “You’re always after me?” Michael laughs. “I’m always after you.”

 

    “Yeah, it works out pretty great. You wanna be serious?”

 

    “Already pretty serious.” He admits, and Alex grins at him, so bright, and he grins back. “I’ve kind of been faking it, trying to meet girls?”

 

    “Yeah. I haven’t… tried a lot, either.”

 

    Michael bites his lip, shifting a little, feeling Alex’ thigh slide between his own. Alex’ hands on him, everywhere. Alex’ lips, on his first, and then moving down his throat, down his chest… He lies there a long moment before he realizes he can touch back, can play through Alex’ hair and touch his face.

 

    Alex is just barely stubble-y, it scrapes against Michael’s belly as he kisses his way down, as he gets his jeans open and shoved down his thighs.

 

    “Is there a trick to this?”

 

    “I mean you want to try, try not to gag on it. That’s all. You can use your hands. And it’s-- it’s nice? Or, I thought-- But your jaw might get sore. But that’s all.”

 

    “Okay, cool.” Alex licks his lips. “Real cool. Because I want to.”

 

    He starts with a hand around Michael, familiar, a little teasing… the way he always starts, before they get the way slicked and really go at it, when they’re just messing around and getting the mood. Playful. Not just the touch, but the way he smiles, most times, and knocks their knees together, and the tone of his voice whatever they’re talking about, the way he puts Michael’s mood right on bad days, even if it can only last a little while, teasing out smiles Michael would have thought he didn’t have in him. And it’s not about getting off, it doesn’t feel that way, but getting off helps. At least, getting off with Alex seems to. There’s that feeling that lingers, and days when Alex seems lighter after, too, with his head resting gentle in the crook of Michael’s neck and his hand fisted in the side of Michael’s shirt, and the breathy, almost giggly ‘hey, thanks’ that sometimes came, that meant his own day had been a bad one before, and maybe it’s not a good one after, but it’s a little better. Or it will be for a little while. That getting off with Michael made it temporarily okay for him, too.

 

    And that’s the thing, the understanding they have. The days where the world drags at them harder than it drags at anyone else, and when that happens, at least he can know Alex gets it. Will see him frustrated and snappish and know where it all comes from. Will drag him off to be somewhere just the two of them, even if they’re not in the mood to try getting off, or for anything else. The safety of being able to lean on each other and now there’s this, and it’s all so much more…

 

    Alex takes just the head of his cock in, tongue sliding over him, the touch of it firm and wet and hot, the sweep of it achingly slow, and then Alex hums, and if he didn’t have one hand holding Michael down…

 

    “ _Shit_ , fuuuck, that’s-- that’s what that feels like?”

 

    Alex pulls off, laughing a little. “I thought you did it for me because a girl did it to you once. You didn’t know what it’s like?”

 

    “No-- fuck, bring your mouth back, I want your mouth-- I just did it the first time because I couldn’t _talk_ , and then you _reacted_ , and dammit, Alex, _please_ …”

 

    “Oh, since you said ‘please’...” He grins, drags his tongue from root to tip before taking Michael in again, sliding down a little lower on him, angling so that Michael is hitting the wall of his cheek instead of back towards his throat, jaw open wide to keep his teeth from getting in the way and lips not really able to form a tight seal. Michael really can’t complain-- he doesn’t have a lot to compare it to, and he doesn’t mind that it’s sloppy, kind of likes that it’s sloppy, definitely likes the way the inside of Alex’ cheek feels hot and slick and when he rocks up he can see the shape of himself pushing out.

 

    When it’s too much for his jaw he changes the angle again, experimenting with how much he can handle, his hand wrapped around Michael’s cock, nice and firm now, no teasing. No teasing in the way he sucks hard and hums and uses his tongue, his eyes half-lidded, and Michael couldn’t look away from them if he tried. He can’t think of why he’d try.

 

    He plays with Alex’ hair gently, swallows hard. All the sounds from the other side of the room fade under the pounding of his own blood, everything outside of the two of them mattering less and less the higher Alex takes him. He’s always been able to keep up conversation before, but here, now, this… To string together coherent thought, words? He lets Alex draw sounds out of him instead, sounds he always had to try and muffle or hide, when they could talk, when they couldn’t just sound like they were having sex. But they can talk any time, they can talk trading handjobs, sure, but they talk all the time, and this… the gasping, grunting, groaning, they’ve never had before.

 

    “Alex, Alex…” He breathes his name out at last, his own private mantra, and his hips rock up as far as Alex’ hold on him allows, but it’s _enough_ , it’s enough… “Alex-- you’re _so_ \-- _I’m_ so-- I’m gonna, Alex, I’m gonna--”

 

    And he makes a sound that’s almost Alex’ name again, a sound that’s never come out of him before, never been allowed out of him before, lets it sweep over him and drag him under in a way he’s never done before. Maybe it’s as much the difference between a handjob and a blowjob as it is the difference between secrecy and freedom, but he’s past contemplating that, can only experience it all as it happens, the wave of greater pleasure and the intensity of the locked gaze. Alex makes a face briefly, mid-swallow, but there’s no choking, no gagging that’s loud or obvious to be cause for concern, and the moment he’s pulled off of Michael completely, he’s grinning again.

 

    “So, baby, was that good for you?” Alex scoots up to lie on top of him. It’s a goofy, put-on kind of voice, and Michael laughs at it, but he also feels _loved_.

 

    “Yeah.” He sighs, twirling his fingers through Alex’ hair, winding tighter as his other hand moves to rest on Alex’ ass, kneading gently. “It was.”

 

    “Good.”

 

    He uses the hand tangled up in Alex’ hair to drag him into a kiss. Now that they’ve kissed, he never wants to do anything else… Well, he has a long list of things he’d like to do with Alex, but kissing is a big part of it.

 

    “You two ever going to join the party?” Sam calls over to them.

 

    “Party’s kind of over.” Harold snorts.

 

    Michael looks over at last, the other end of the room at an awkward angle and slightly fuzzy, from where he is. Harold looks like he hasn’t moved from his chair at all, except for the fact that his shirt is half off, hanging around his neck, and his pants are presumably down around his ankles. Sarah in his lap, occasionally reaching down to smooth at Meg’s hair, Meg and Karen both sitting there leaning against the chair, against Harold’s legs, cuddled together between Nick and Sam. Nick and Sam, not able to lean back against enough chair to keep them upright, merely leaning in against the girls. Legs maybe tangled together. Lazy, familiar, friendly touches traded.

 

    “Give it a minute, we could start back up again. Since _some people_ didn’t change partners.”

 

    “We really saved this orgy, Sam.” Nick mumbles, head resting somewhere against Harold’s knee and Meg’s shoulder. “From just being four pairs of people fucking in the same room.”

 

    “Yeah, I think we had something to do with that.” Meg elbows him, but not hard. “I made out with more people than you did.”

 

    “I kissed exactly the same number of people you did.” Sam says.

 

    “Your aim was terrible.” Harold nudges at him.

 

    “Well. A kiss is a kiss. Anyway, just… you two, get over here and join us, party or no party.”

 

    “Yeah?” Michael asks, still holding onto Alex-- holding on a little tighter.

 

    “Yeah. It’s still… it’s still a group thing.”

 

    “I mean… are we cool after this?” He bites his lip.

 

    “I don’t know why you’re asking us.” Nick says, without lifting his head. “We’re not the guys you sucked off to prove a point, we should worry about if you guys are cool.”

 

    “Are you kidding me?” Sam laughs, reaches past the girls to shove at Nick’s shoulder.

 

    “No, I’m not kidding, you think that won’t fuck up a friendship? And then we all have to choose sides if they can’t even look at each other--”

 

    “That’s _not_ going to be a problem.” Sam says.

 

    “If you had seen them as up close as I saw them, you wouldn’t think Michael was doing it to prove a _point_.” Meg adds.

 

    “You mean…” He turns from them to Michael. “You just… wanted to?”

 

    “Yeah. I mean-- Yeah.”

 

    “You like girls.”

 

    “I like Alex. I mean, also. More than I like, um, more than girls I guess, I just--”

 

    “But it’s… like, it’s because it’s Alex?”

 

    “I mean there are other guys I’d fool around with if they _asked_.” Michael shrugs, and despite his unease over saying it all out loud, saying it all directly to the others, he can’t stop smiling, can’t stop playing with Alex’ hair. “But yeah, it’s Alex… it just-- Yeah.”

 

    Nick seems to relax, anyway. Mumbles an ‘okay, cool’ before just letting himself drift off a little.

 

    “So?” Sam beckons them over.

 

    Alex rises, pulling Michael up after him, both of them laughing and kicking off the tangle of their jeans, hanging onto each other.

 

    Michael moves the ottoman over, to have something to lean back against, sitting opposite the others, resting his legs along theirs, just grinning when Sam kicks at him a little. Alex settles into his lap, reaching up to play with his hair.

 

    “So you guys really went for it, huh?”

 

    “Well… mostly? I don’t know if it was a _success_ as an orgy, but it was fun.” He smiles. “You really went for it.”

 

    “I guess.” Michael ducks his head. “I just… there’s so much not telling anyone… I didn’t even, uh, I didn’t even tell Alex before today, and we’ve-- we’ve done other things together.”

 

    “What? You cheat!” Karen kicks at him a little, but she laughs, too.

 

    “Well, but it was, it was other things, it wasn’t this. Anyway… I don’t know. If I can’t tell anyone and I can’t walk around holding his hand and I can’t do any of those things, if we were going to do this and have that sort of game in place, I could at least… I don’t know.”

 

    “It was good.” Alex nuzzles at his neck. “I’m glad you went for it. We could have been just dancing around each other, being miserable.”

 

    “Yeah. Now we’ll be miserable together.” Michael snorts. And it probably doesn’t sound romantic, to the others. It probably sounds callous and cynical. Alex, he thinks, will know what he means. That misery is unavoidable. That he’s glad to have this.

 

    “Yeah. I like that.” He laughs and he kisses Michael’s throat, and makes himself entirely at home in his arms, and holding him, Michael thinks he could follow Nick’s example and just… nap, sprawled naked in the living room against his friends.


End file.
